I’m loving the Mammasaurus linky How Does Your Garden Grow, sunny scenes and blooms just make me happy! I dream of a garden, but instead have a yarden, a container garden, which we love to potter in, I sit out most days with a cuppa and just watch birds to and fro, bees busily buzzing and the odd ant army trooping about. So what do I know about container gardening? Well not a lot, but we’re learning, we’ve learned that when we get plants from friend’s and family’s gardens the soil needs to be changed as they tend not to fayre well in garden soil out of the garden! We’ve learned that we like sedums, hardy and satisfyingly sturdy, and that there’s nothing like getting together with the flat owner upstairs, building a wall with a cider one summer evening and filling it with climbers and spending subsequent evenings encouraging their trails through the trellis! Painting the external wall adds light, and when it flakes you get a bit antsy but then it takes on a rustic charm, mismatching pots work, and small children like lots and lots of windmills!

My favourite room is Joss’ nursery, it’s exactly as I hoped it would be and perfect for a little girl who loves to look around and takes an active interest in the world around her. I thought I’d share some snapshots as I so love looking at other blogger’s rooms! The moody lighting is courtesy of our Gro-anywhere Blind, derigeur in all young children’s rooms at this time of year!

Here goes, this is the felt mobile I made whilst she was a newborn:

Farm bunting by the brilliant Bill Quay Fabric Workshop which I urge you to visit!

Toy and soft furnishing corner, we love owls!

A shelf for hanging teeny tiny baby clothes, we won the Joss Daisy train on a twitter competition and the lovely green wreath featured heavily in our wedding colour scheme and now lives in Joss’ room!

And finally, lots and lots of pictures, here’s just a small selection, we’re a family that likes to have busy walls!

And finally, and brighter, the view from Jossy’s window, our lovely container garden, or yarden!

I’ll be back over the weekend with more information, but I’m delighted to be joining a prolific group of other Cuddledry Super Bloggers! We’re huge Cuddledry fans, their infamous apron towel started it all off for us and we’re about to move into toddler sized towels soon, you can see the profiles of other fans here in the meantime! http://www.cuddledry.com/about-us/64/cuddledry-super-bloggers

Very quick post as we’ve a busy day ahead, studying for me then a local family fun day for Joss. Just looking through some photos from earlier this week and saw this one, she’s going to be sooooo tall!

It strikes me that an awful lot of people are too interested in how others are bringing up their children, I try not to concern myself too much with how others do things, mainly because I had a hard time early on getting to grips with all the different ‘types’ of parenting approaches and settled for the mantra, it works for our family so this is how we do it!

I was saddened to hear this week about a local mama who experienced a very negative response to babywearing, most of the responses I’ve had have either been very positive, or people have simply been interested in the how, why and wherefor of carrying a baby/ toddler. We do get a lot of questions though, some are interesting, some are just plain silly, so I had to share our experience from earlier this week.

We were up at Aldi waiting to pay, behind me I heard “look at that I couldn’t be ar**d with all that”, turn around, “sorry, I was just saying I couldn’t be faffed with carrying mine everywhere!” She was concerned that Joss would struggle to learn to walk being carried and that she will be clingy. I replied that she is learning to walk just fine and once she wants to be down and on the go she will be carried when she wants to, and that she’s a really independent little thing so I have no worries there. It did make me laugh though when she rolled out one I hadn’t heard before, “how does she eat?!”

Total comic timing Jossy pops her head out of the sling and both arms – with not one but two tickets to the gun show – a breadstick in each hand, big gummy grin! I told her that the crumbs are a bit of a nightmare and she just looked really bemused!

She’s only happy in the sun… – Ben Harper

One of my favourite songs popped into my head today, by Ben Harper. It came to be there because the hubby and I were talking about how much happier, more productive and generally nice to be around I am in the summer in comparison to the winter. In the Summer I take on new activities, at the moment I’m parenting, studying, working, and volunteering and feel like all these things are very manageable, a stark contrast to winter-me, summer-me is sunny and bright. Winter-me doesn’t do much, doesn’t take on new things, hibernates and eats.

“Shall we move to Spain and you’d have a happy wife all year round?” I asked?

“No, we’d have no money, and we’re OK”

“Alright then, make the most of summer-me then, I won’t be around for long!”

It’s a bit of an epiphany, I read somewhere and must hunt it out that some people plan the running of their own businesses around their seasonal mood swings, taking on new work and hence profitability in the summer, taking a rest and therefore a hit in the winter…I’m off to work on one of the many ‘excellent’ ideas that I only have at this time of year!

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North East mammy, student and part time charity manager. I'm an eco-conscious thrifter. I blog about toddler craft and cooking ideas, child development, parental mental health and finding joy in the everyday. I am a major research geek, if it's out there I'll find it!
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